Help

Epistula is a place for slow, honest correspondence — a community feed, a forum, letters delivered on a delay, and a private journal only you can read. This page answers the questions that come up most, and tells you where to write when it doesn't.

What is Epistula?

Epistula is an app built around writing slowly and meaning it. There are four places to write: Acta, a community feed with a daily prompt; the Forum, for longer conversation; Letters, written to one person and delivered after a delay you choose; and the Journal, a private space that only you can read.

Epistula Plus

Epistula Plus is the optional paid subscription. It opens the app's quiet, personal surfaces — the guided journal practices and letters — while the shared spaces stay free. The price is whatever the App Store shows you at the moment you subscribe, in your own currency.

The subscription renews automatically at the end of each period unless you cancel. Payment is charged to your Apple ID, and Apple handles the whole transaction — we never see your card. If a free trial is offered, it converts to a paid subscription when it ends unless you cancel at least 24 hours before. The full terms are in the Terms of Use.

How do I cancel my subscription?

Subscriptions are managed by Apple, not inside Epistula. To cancel:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap your name at the top.
3. Tap Subscriptions.
4. Choose Epistula, then Cancel Subscription.

You keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for. For a refund, Apple handles those too — visit reportaproblem.apple.com and sign in with your Apple ID.

How do I download everything I've written?

In the app, open Settings and choose to download your writing. You do not have to ask anyone, and you do not have to wait. Your journal is decrypted on your own device as it is exported, because we cannot decrypt it for you — see below.

How do I delete my account?

In the app, open Settings and choose to delete your account. Your profile, posts, comments, threads, replies, and journal entries are removed. Letters you sent survive with your name taken off, so that the person you wrote to keeps what you said to them. There is no waiting for permission.

Is my journal really private?

Yes. Journal entries are encrypted on your device before they ever reach our servers, with a key derived from your password.

We cannot read your journal, and we cannot recover it for you. This is not a promise about our intentions; it is a fact about the mathematics.

The honest cost of that guarantee: if you lose your password and are not signed in on any device, past entries can become unreadable, permanently. The app warns you at the moment this matters. One exception you choose yourself is dictation — speaking an entry instead of typing it sends the audio out to be transcribed. The Privacy Policy explains exactly what happens then.

Reporting and safety

If something crosses a line, you can report it or block the person from inside the app. Reports are read by a human, who decides what happens. You can also choose who you walk with, and who you would rather not see.

I forgot my password

Use Forgot password on the sign-in screen. A reset link is sent to your email. Remember that your password also protects your journal: resetting it lets you back into your account, but entries written under an old password may stay locked if their key did not travel with you.

Still stuck?

Write to hello@epistula.app. Tell us what happened and what you expected instead. A person reads it.